


I'm Sorry

by AgataVarano



Series: Scar [4]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Cute, False Accusations, Gen, Hugs, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, Self-Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25242628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgataVarano/pseuds/AgataVarano
Summary: No matter how many good things you do, there will always be someone who doesn't trust you.
Relationships: Stephen Strange & Original Female Character(s), Tony Stark & Original Female Character(s)
Series: Scar [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1826437
Kudos: 2





	I'm Sorry

**Author's Note:**

> • English is not my first language, so I'm sorry if you find any mistakes.  
> • You can find this and more fics on my Tumblr @/let-me-write-my-life and my Instagram @/agata_varano.

_ So don't apologise, I'm losing what I don't deserve. - Linkin Park (Burning in the Skies) _

Maybe being some sort of modified human is not the worst thing that could ever happen. Maybe it just takes time and a little effort to accept who you are. Maybe you can be at peace with who you are if you really want to. But what about others? You can't control how people react when hundreds of files disappear from the S.H.I.E.L.D computers and are sent to an unknown base, belonging to no one but the Agency X itself. Or at least, Lara can't. Lara can't control all the thoughts, doubts and fears rising in other people's minds. She could go on forever repeating over and over she hates with all her heart the Agency, but she could never stop people from looking at her suspiciously, silently accusing her of something she has never done. There are thousands of crimes Lara could be accused of, but this is not one of them.

This is why she can't accept Fury telling her she's no longer allowed to have contact with the S.H.I.E.L.D and the Avengers. She just can't. She screams at him, she screams her lungs off repeating they have no proof against her and for a second she can even see Fury agrees with her. He doesn't say it, but Lara knows it. But this is not up to him. This is up to Secretary Ross, who is completely sure about what has to be done: Lara must be kept away forever. "And be grateful I'm not sending you to jail." Lara can't stand it, she can't stay silent. "What would you imprison me for? Something I haven't done? You have no proof against me! You can't me use to cover something you don't want to investigate!" "Something you haven't done? You are the only one here who has ever had any contact with this organisation, so you're the only one who could be responsible of this crime." This is when everything falls apart. Lara is raging, screaming and insulting Ross, Tony and Natasha are trying to convince Ross that what he's doing is senseless and Stephen is keeping Lara from killing someone. The other Avengers are silently supporting Lara, Steve is trying to calm down Lara. "Investigations will be made, you just have to follow these instructions for a little and-" He doesn't have the time to finish the sentence since Lara is already accusing Ross of receiving money from the Agency X. This is when she leaves, barely keeping her powers from tearing Ross' body apart. Stephen follows her out of the door, but Ross is not done. "Don't let her go, not anymore," he says in his earpiece.

Lara is rushing down the hallway, a concentrate of rage and fury, when she feels someone stopping her from behind. She turns to see Stephen, begging her to stay. He's not an Avenger, she can stay with him and Wong at the Sanctum. But Lara has a presentment on how things will end up. No investigation will ever be made, she will never be forgiven. They will never let her go. "I… I would love to, but I can't. I know how these things work. In no time I will be accused of something else and you'll end up in jail for helping me. I won't let this happen, you don't deserve it." Stephen is about to protest, but she hugs him tighter than she has ever done before he can say a word. "I'm sorry," she whispers against the Cloak as she squeezes him one last time before letting go of him, running down the stairs. Stephen tries to stop her, but she's gone, chased by a few agents of S.H.I.E.L.D sent by Ross.

You never realise how many agents are out there until you have to run away from them, until you have to get to your old house to get your fake documents and start a new life, hoping not to get caught in the process. Lara barely holds back tears while she hides her phone and ID under the floor of her room. She hears the sound of cars racing down the street as she takes her fake documents out of her bedside table. She doesn't have the time to take anything else, policemen are already banging on the door. She runs out the back door, chased by the few agents who have noticed her. Getting to the underground station is harder than expected, but desperate times call for desperate measures, desperate measures being the good old tricks from unrealistic spy movies. Get on the subway, wait until they're behind you, get off the subway and take the next one. Stupid, foolproof, banal, but it works. The next subway is crowded, but there doesn't seem to be any policeman. Lara attentively studies all her IDs. Sharon, Martha, Jean, Carol, Katie, Sam, all fake identities she used when she worked as a hit man. Giving people her real name was not a smart idea. Her eyes stops on an old passport, a photo of a young, smiling girl with orange hair glued on it. Amanda Ross. The girl working with the Agency X. "This one will work just fine."

It's been three weeks. In the end, Lara has chosen to go to Philadelphia. The city has changed a lot, but she isn't in the mood to be excited by it. She has already changed life a lot of times, she didn't remember it being so painful. "How do you know this is gonna work?" A male voice captures Lara's attention as she sips her cheap coffee in a rather small diner. Another man answers the first one. "Those guys know nothing about us. The only problem we had is currently hiding somewhere like the coward she is." This sounds interesting, surely more interesting than the boring film review Lara was reading. "And how do you know she won't get in the way?" "You know what? I hope she comes. Feige will be happy to see her." Lara freezes. Now she knows what her plans for the evening are. 

As soon as the two men get up and leave, Lara leaves a banknote on the table and leaves as well. She follows them to their car and then attacks them. She blocks one to the ground with her powers and threatens the other with fire. It's a matter of seconds before the two are willing to give Lara the information she wants. "The Agency has a base not far from here, forty minutes by car. They have been planning an attack to the S.H.I.E.L.D. for the last two months. You were too close to finding it out so they made sure to get you out of the way." "So it's your fault if I'm here?!" "Not completely. We just left them some traces leading to the Agency, nothing about you. Looks like your friends weren't sure about your loyalty right from the start." "Shut up before I kill both of you." "If you kill us, how do you plan on finding our base, smartass?" Lara rolls her eyes: these two are idiots, but she still needs them to get to this famous hidden base. When they get there, Lara knocks off the two guys, stealing their access cards and entering the building from a service door. The first person she meets is a young scientist who almost screams when he sees her. Almost, because Lara is fast enough to cover his mouth before his voice calls anyone. Lara has no idea what's wrong with her, maybe sleeping less than five hours a day has made her look like some sort of mythological monster, but this man declares right from the start he is ready to help Lara if it means having his life spared. She didn't plan on killing him anyway, but who cares. "I heard you're planning to attack the S.H.I.E.L.D. Care to explain it all to me?" "Okay, well- This was not my idea, okay? It's not my fault if Mr Feige is broke and the S.H.I.E.L.D is rich and you were in the way and-" This is going to be a long, oh so long interrogation. "Whatever, get to the point." "Fine. They want to kill everyone. This scientist a lot of time ago discovered this thing, the Substance Y, which is highly radioactive and its radiation is extremely toxic. But not toxic like poison. It kind of destroys all your atoms and leaves you trapped in some sort of limbo between what is matter and what isn't. Whatever, you're dead. And it's a good plan, cause after you've taken this radioactive substance you can't get rid of it without someone absorbing the radiation. So they wanted to call the S.H.I.E.L.D, tell them something like "hey, we've got your magic friend" and when they come here to either help you or bring you to jail they kill them all." The scientist looks extremely relieved after his confession, but Lara has never been so worried. "Someone has to die, then…" "Yeah, if you want to say it like this." "And tell me, when are they calling the Avengers?" "Well, they did it two hours ago." Lara freezes. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Then something comes across her mind. Someone has to die. "Where is this Substance Y?"

The laboratory is big, clean and tidy. Just like every laboratory worth this name. The terrible and fatal substance is nothing but a small amount of blue liquid that could barely fill a glass. When Lara enters the room, there are just five scientists inside. Easy target, it takes her less than fifteen minutes to knock them out. As she stands before the table that the substance has been left on, Lara can't help notice how insignificant it looks. She can't believe that all her powers come from such a little thing. The unbreakable glass is hot to the touch, especially considering Lara's naturally low temperature, the air around it has light blue undertones. Lara's fingers tighten around the test tube, harder and harder until the glass shatters. The liquid is burning hot and is absorbed by her skin faster than expected, but the pain is above imagination. Lara lets out a scream as she holds her wrist in pain, before something hits her in the back of her head and she passes out.

Lara opens her eyes slowly. The room is bright, too bright for her eyes to stay wide open. "I hope you're satisfied now, Johnson." The voice isn't new to Lara. She turns her head to see no one but Mark Feige himself standing not far from her. "I won't be satisfied until I see you dead." He steps closer, a malicious smirk on his face. "I'll just ignore your extremely unkind answer. I have an offer for you.  _ I _ give you the cure for the poison you've so stupidly taken and  _ you _ work with me again. What do you think?" Lara doesn't even need to think it through. She spits right on his face and grins. "This. This I think of your offer." Feige gets angry, so angry his face doesn't move a bit. He slowly cleans his face, then points a gun under Lara's chin. "You should never  _ ever _ play with fire if you don't want to get burnt, understood darling?" She lets him finish, but as soon as his dead glare rests on her eyes, Lara kicks him in the stomach and uses her powers to break her handcuffs and make the agents around her fall down. "Darling, I  _ control _ fire." The following fight is fast and Lara is one step from killing Feige, but then her hand fades away, leaving nothing but an atrocious pain. Feige kicks Lara down and runs away, leaving her on the ground trying to earn a few more minutes before the inevitable. With a lot of effort, her hand comes back, but she knows well it won't last. The noise of the Quinjet landing just reminds her she has to be quick. The last thing she wants is anyone seeing her.

She knows it's stupid, she thinks about it over and over as she rushes through the halls, trying so hard to avoid all the Avengers running around the building. Maybe they could help her, maybe… No, no, they can't. No one can. If she had wanted to live, she should have thought about it hours before, when she had decided to avoid anyone the same torture she was going through. She holds back a scream as she recreates her leg. She doesn't know if it hurts more letting the Substance destroy her body or reversing the process soon after. It probably ends in a draw. She sees a golden spark coming from the hallway on the left. Fuck. She turns right. Where is Feige? The only reason why she hasn't let herself die is to kill that joke of a man. Now she is just hoping to find him before the Avengers find her. She doesn't hate them, it's just… She is not so megalomaniac as to believe that anyone would ever despair of her. All she wants is to avoid any fake talk, she doesn't want all her faults to be condoned for some hypocritical gratitude. She doesn't want to be remembered for some sort of good girl by all the people who hated on her and accused her of being a traitor. Then she thinks of Stephen, Tony, Wanda, Bucky, Natasha, all those people she was close to. Maybe they will miss her. Maybe. But if they never find her, they will never miss her, right? This is why she is running, running as fast as she can to find Feige and have the pleasure to kill him once and for all. But things don't go the way she wants.

Less than an hour later, Feige's body is thrown off the roof by his son and heir, Jonas Feige. Lara can only stare at the old man being pushed down by a kick, a scream escaping his mouth but lasting no more than a few seconds, then silence until he crashes to the ground. A miserable death for the man of Lara's nightmares. Now she just has to wait until her time comes too.

She notices it when the pain becomes stronger and her powers can't hold it back anymore. She sees the fingers of her left hand slowly fading away as she clenches her teeth, a scream dying in her throat. But she also sees a red piece of clothing turning her way. And she runs. She runs making her way through the few agents left. She makes it to a little room where there is almost no one. She kills them all and stares at her left arm disappearing. She doesn't even try to bring it back. She just can't. She is not strong enough. It's already too tiring staying silent, despite the heinous pain. But then someone calls her name and she knows she can't run away, not anymore. She can just read terror on Stephen's face when he sees her, half disappeared and half agonizing. But maybe she can run away. Once and for all. Someone has to die. She tears down the ceiling above her. She gives all the strength she has left to the Substance Y. She lets herself be torn apart, she lets all her atoms explode. And when Stephen desperately uses the time stone to stop the ceiling from falling down, there's nothing left to save.


End file.
